WEBVTT

NOTE 3. The Ohio Lands: The Proclamation Line of 1763

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.360
Volume 3, Chapter 3, The Ohio Lands, The Proclamation Line of 1763

2
00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:14.400
With the French and Indian War completely over, and the northern American continent east

3
00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:23.000
of the Mississippi subdued by 1763, the English government faced more insistently the problem

4
00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:29.600
of what to do with the western lands. Until now, or at least until the temporary edict

5
00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:36.600
of 1761, Virgin Land had been open to settlement on various terms and in various relationships

6
00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:44.480
to the Indian tribes. But now the British government began to prepare what would be

7
00:00:44.480 --> 00:00:51.480
a rude shock to the American colonists. On June 8, 1763, Lord Shelburne, powerful protege

8
00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:58.660
Lord Shelburne, powerful protege of the Earl of Bute and the Duke of Bedford and President

9
00:00:58.660 --> 00:01:04.880
of the Board of Trade, recommended that the newly conquered land be divided into three

10
00:01:04.880 --> 00:01:11.280
new colonies, East Florida, West Florida and Canada.

11
00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:16.720
Simultaneously, the vast remaining lands of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were to be

12
00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:40.240
It is incorrect to imply, as many historians have done, that this measure was designed

13
00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:46.640
merely to quiet the Indians temporarily in the face of Pontiac's rebellion.

14
00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:52.680
The Board of Trade's proposal was made months before the Indian Rebellion had become known

15
00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:59.100
in England. To be sure, the rebellion hastened the English decision, and the Board now urged

16
00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:05.320
an immediate proclamation reserving to the Indians all territory west of the Appalachians

17
00:02:05.320 --> 00:02:10.500
and ousting all white settlers from the western lands.

18
00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:16.980
The King issued a proclamation to this effect on October 7. It established East Florida

19
00:02:16.980 --> 00:02:24.460
westward to the Apalachicola River, West Florida in the southwest from the Apalachicola to

20
00:02:24.460 --> 00:02:31.880
the Mississippi and Quebec in what was formerly French Canada. Cape Breton Island was added

21
00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:39.920
to Nova Scotia and the region south of the Altamaha River to Georgia. Most important,

22
00:02:39.920 --> 00:02:46.680
The Proclamation barred any white settlement, present or future, in the lands west of the

23
00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:53.360
Appalachians, and placed its government under the military commander-in-chief. Even voluntary

24
00:02:53.360 --> 00:03:00.040
purchase of land from the Indians was outlawed. The Proclamation also decreed that Indian

25
00:03:00.040 --> 00:03:07.040
lands within the bounds of the seaboard colonies must be voluntarily purchased from the Indians

26
00:03:07.040 --> 00:03:14.480
in Public Transactions. What was the reason for this astounding British policy, which

27
00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:22.060
stunned and deeply angered the American colonist? We have seen one grave flaw in the theory

28
00:03:22.060 --> 00:03:29.360
that this was only a temporary way to appease the rebellious Indians. Another flaw is that

29
00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:36.360
the proclamation line continued in force long after Pontiac's rebellion had been quelled.

30
00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:41.820
The Board of Trade later proclaimed its aim to be the altruistic one of protecting and

31
00:03:41.820 --> 00:03:49.520
safeguarding the Indians, and many historians have naively fallen for this myth. But surely

32
00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:56.160
the contemptuous attitude of the British then, and in the past toward the Indians, is enough

33
00:03:56.160 --> 00:04:03.580
to discredit the idea of a sudden burst of enlightened altruism toward the red man? Far

34
00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:11.980
Far more convincing are two motives attributed to the Crown, both economic, a, a general

35
00:04:11.980 --> 00:04:19.300
desire to keep the Americans confined to the seaboard to continue to provide markets for

36
00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:28.620
English manufacturers, and b, a bowing to the pressure of the powerful English fur lobby,

37
00:04:28.620 --> 00:04:37.060
which was desirous of keeping the West free of settlers and therefore confined to the fur trade.

38
00:04:37.060 --> 00:04:41.380
On the first point, the British were apprehensive that Americans in the interior would begin

39
00:04:41.380 --> 00:04:47.460
to make their own clothes and other goods in their households rather than buy English

40
00:04:47.460 --> 00:04:53.060
textiles so that valuable English markets would be lost.

41
00:04:53.060 --> 00:04:58.460
This motive for outlawing further settlement was privately admitted by various key British

42
00:04:58.460 --> 00:05:04.060
of the British officials, including John Pownall, Secretary of the Board of Trade.

43
00:05:04.060 --> 00:05:09.860
For its part, the fur lobby had powerful connections in the English government. Particularly important

44
00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:16.300
for the American fur trade was David Franks of Philadelphia, who was connected with John

45
00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:23.020
Watts and James Delancey in the Albany fur trade. The crucial London connection of Franks

46
00:05:23.020 --> 00:05:51.820
A memorandum by Lord Shelburne's secretary, Maurice Morgan, declared the need to confine

47
00:05:51.820 --> 00:06:03.820
to the Eastern Seaboard in order to preserve the West as a source of furs, and to keep it as open and wild as possible for the purposes of hunting.

48
00:06:03.820 --> 00:06:13.820
Thus the fur lobby was able to triumph over the interest of the settlers, as well as over the separate interest of the various speculative land companies,

49
00:06:43.820 --> 00:06:50.820
to defy Crown policy and quietly moved to settle west of the Proclamation Line.

50
00:06:51.820 --> 00:06:57.820
The British military succeeded in obtaining orders from Pennsylvania and Virginia to desist from settlement,

51
00:06:58.820 --> 00:07:01.820
but these laws and edicts could not be enforced.

52
00:07:02.820 --> 00:07:06.820
If the speculators in western lands were thwarted by the Proclamation Line,

53
00:07:07.820 --> 00:07:12.820
the reverse was true for speculators in lands east of the Appalachians,

54
00:07:13.820 --> 00:07:20.220
which were now the only lands open to New Settlement. A boom occurred in Nova Scotia

55
00:07:20.220 --> 00:07:27.020
on lands seized from the unfortunate Acadians. Benjamin Franklin picked up 100,000 acres

56
00:07:27.020 --> 00:07:34.020
there in Pennsylvania and in Florida. Indeed, many highly important interests in England

57
00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:40.940
had speculated heavily in Florida lands. Interests that included the Prime Minister George Grenville

58
00:07:40.940 --> 00:07:47.940
This speculation undoubtedly strengthened their resolve during the war to seize North America rather than the Sugar Islands of the West Indies.